Author's Note: Almost nine months since my last update on this story. It is not dead! I've just been REALLY busy with school and life lately. Without further gab, here is chapter 13!
Chapter Thirteen: The Past and Rebuilding Burnt Bridges
To say the flight home was nerve racking for Katie was an understatement. The young girl felt a wave of fear rise in her mind and crest as the family landed in the front yard of the Go-Possible residence. Katie tensed as she felt Veronica's eyes on her. "Katie, we need to talk." The green woman said with a look in her eyes. Katie flinched at the look and felt her pulse quicken. This will be painful. Katie thought as she looked at her feet and slowly walked in the house. Outside the door, Heather smiled at Katie and gave the scared girl a "thumbs up" movement. There was a comfort in the Heather's simple gesture that surprised Katie. "What was that?" The girl mumbled under her breath as she saw both of her parents sitting at the table waiting.
Katie noticed that Kim seemed sympathetic to her daughter's situation while Veronica was angry with her. "What were you thinking, Katie?!" Veronica asked as her hands flared slightly in restrained anger. Katie closed her eyes and looked at both her parents. Kim fought a smile of pride at the fire in Katie's eyes. "You were in trouble. What was I supposed to do?" Katie's voice betrayed her aggravation with Veronica in that moment. "Was I supposed to let those psychotic sons of b-?!" Kim shot Veronica a look. Then, she held up a hand. "Calm down, honey, and just talk to us." Katie nodded, took a deep breath, and visibly relaxed as tension left her body. "No one messes with my family and gets away with it. Just ask Billy." Veronica only nodded curtly before the green woman spoke. "What if you were seriously hurt in the battle?" Veronica said as fear flashed through the woman's mind and caused her to shiver. Kim gripped Veronica's hand. Out of their three children, Veronica was closest to Katie, so thought of harm coming to her youngest daughter affected Veronica on a deeper level.
Kim looked at Katie. "If something happened you…" The redhead spoke softly. When Kim looked at Katie again, there was a long-buried pain in her green eyes. "Do you know?" Kim choked as her emotions came up and threatened to send the woman into a fit of sobs. Veronica held Kim's gaze until she regained her bearings. "You couldn't go home with us for three months after you were born." Kim squeezed her daughter's hand as tears began to well up in Kim's eyes. "We…" The pain in her parents' eyes chipped away at Katie's anger as she watched her parents relive possibly the worst day in their lives. "…didn't know if you were going to make it out of the hospital for a while." Veronica looked at Katie. "We know you are strong; you wouldn't be ours if you weren't." Kim put a hand on Katie's cheek. "However, we are your Moms, and we will always worry." Katie hugged her parents and wiped her eyes as they embraced.
Minutes later, Heather and Katie talked about the discussion between Kim, Veronica, and the fiery child on the swing attached to the front of the house. "I never knew how much pain they went through when I was born," Katie told Heather with a sad expression on her face. "I just HAD to be an idiot and remind them!" Heather shook her head with a smile at her friend. "If you hadn't charged in like that," the slightly older girl signed back before she hugged Katie. Then, the deaf girl continued to sign once she let go of her adoptive sister. "I don't want to know what would have happened." She sighed. "They wouldn't be here to give you that lecture and show you how much they care." Heather's face grew downcast once her hands stopped moving. Katie smiled softly at her friend and took a turn at being the source of comfort. It really is messed up to think she's technically my cousin instead of my sister. Katie thought. The two friends unconsciously inched closer together as they sat on the swing in comfortable silence.
Unknown to either of the children, Veronica slipped the front door open and watched them under the cover of night. The green woman turned to her wife, motioned her over, and grinned wickedly as she whispered, "Still think our youngest daughter doesn't know what she wants?" Where Veronica saw budding romance, Kim saw two friends comforting each other. To that end, Kim shook her head and voiced her doubt, "She's too young to know what romance is." Veronica shrugged, "She's highly emotionally developed for one so young. I'm just telling ya what I see, Princess."
Kim nodded and turned back to the table to sit back down at the table but was captured in a fierce grip. Veronica laughed and kissed Kim's cheek. "You remember what it was like when we were still enemies?" Kim stopped and looked at her wife. "I wanted nothing more than to stop you and make sure you stayed in jail for your crimes." Veronica nodded. "That changed, though." Veronica said with a sultry tone. Kim shivered as the tone sent waves of pleasure through her body. Kim looked at the green woman with her best attempt at a glare, which was damn near impossible with the desire building inside the redhead. "Didn't it, Kimmie?" Veronica whispered in Kim's ear. Kim's knees buckled at her wife's hot breath on the redhead's neck.
Before Veronica could work her magic on her Kimmie further, the sound of a jet engine outside the house destroyed the mood Veronica was working so hard to build and maintain. Damn you, Victor! Veronica growled mentally as she felt Kim tense in her grip and sighed because the moment was now thoroughly destroyed. "What do you want, Victor?" Kim growled as she glared at her brother-in-law. Veronica smiled when she saw this. Maybe the mood will be salvageable. The green woman dared to hope as her other brothers walked in.
"Kim, Shego;" Victor's voice didn't carry the same pompous air it usually did when he spoke. Kim raised an eyebrow at the man when she noticed this change. Victor walked to a seat at the dining room table. "If I may be so bold as to speak freely in a household that doesn't desire my company, let me just say I'm sorry." It was Veronica's turn to be shocked. Victor NEVER apologized for anything. This led Veronica to the next logical question: "Why are you sorry?" Kim felt a shiver crawl up her spine as she saw the look in Victor's eyes. Kim's mind worked frantically to find a solution. Then, the former teen hero and current Mom of three saw movement out of the corner of her eye.
Taking a stab in the dark, Kim called, "Arnold, what do you think you're doing?" The shrinking man froze. "Get back here now, Young Man!" Kim growled as she unconsciously slipped into "Scolding Mode" in spite of Arnold being older than her by at least seven or eight years. Veronica gave Kim a look that was a cross between disbelief and outright laughter. When Arnold responded just like a caught child, Veronica could no longer hold in her laughter and began openly laughing at the effect Kim had on Arnold. "You will NOT see Heather unless Veronica and/or I are with you. Understood?" Arnold somehow found the confidence to smirk at Kim and open his mouth in retort, but the confidence dried up like water on the surface of Mercury when the purple man saw his sister ignite her left hand in warning.
"Now, what do the four of you want?" Kim asked with a bite in her tone that wasn't there before. Luis and Clark smiled at Kim and Veronica while multiple duplicates restrained and gagged the older brothers. "We want…" Luis started. "…to be a family again and be able to see our nieces." Kim and Veronica looked at each other. Veronica looked at her twin brothers. "Do you know what Victor did to us when Kim tried that with wedding invitations?" Clark nodded his head as his twin looked over at Victor with a glare. The man sighed. Before he could defend himself, the strongman's youngest brothers produced a CD. They frowned and handed the disk to Kim and Veronica. "Jim and Tim recorded the whole event on here."
Once Kim began to play the disk, Victor began to sweat. There, before them, the event of Kim and Veronica's wedding unfolded. It was a simple affair. Veronica's brothers were on one side of the aisle with some of Veronica's friends. The other side of the aisle was packed with friends and the entire Possible Clan and Kim's friends. The wedding went off without a hitch until the Justice of the Peace said, "If anyone has any just cause why these two should not wed, speak-" Victor's slurred voce broke out. "I O-OBJECT!" Veronica glared at her brother as Kim facepalmed to hide the tears in her eyes. Victor didn't stop there, however. "Kim, I always h- h- had loved you." Kim marched up to the man in her wedding dress and gripped his neck as the redhead let her temper flare. "You WILL NOT RUIN this for me!"Kim then proceeded to clone herself, had a clone hold Victor still by the collar, had another burn his face, and had the third clone punch him repeatedly until he left the ceremony as a whimpering mass of a "man".
As Clark cut the video, Luis looked at his sister and sister-in-law with a hopeful smile. "Would you want to renew your vows and try again?" Veronica gave Arnold a questioning look to which the man nodded. "Consider it an attempt at an apology from us, sis." Arnold said as the Wego Twins nodded in agreement. Veronica wasn't sure if she heard right. Did Arnold just use a second person plural pronoun?! Kim smiled at the thought and squeezed Veronica's hand. "I would marry her over and over again for eternity if I could." Kim looked at Veronica.
"What do you say?" Veronica grinned. "I'd love to, but we're only married legally." She laughed at Kim's stunned expression. "We are only bound on the surface through the gem." She cupped Kim's face in her hands. "I want you to participate in Dragon Bonding Ceremony to give us a True Dragon-Rider Bond." Veronica kissed Kim gently before she glared at Victor who shank away at the hidden fury in Veronica's eyes. "It can't be stopped by drunken idiots."
Please Read, Review, and suggest ideas for the Bonding Ceremony.